A man in a business suit was executed in broad daylight on a Midtown street packed with holiday shoppers, tourists and workers returning from lunch yesterday, in what authorities called a carefully coordinated “assassination.”
The victim, 31-year-old Los Angeles resident Brandon Lincoln Woodard, had just left a hotel and was walking on West 58th Street shortly before 2 p.m. when his silent assassin came out of nowhere, authorities and witnesses said.
Woodard, the father of a 4-year-old girl, was texting before the shooting, sources said.
The killer walked up behind him, whipped out a silver semiautomatic handgun and fired once into the back of his head.
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GORY DETAIL: With a barrier to shield the bloody scene from passers-by, police look over the scene where Brandon Lincoln Woodard (right) was gunned down yesterday.
Woodard fell on his back with blood pouring from his face outside St. Thomas Choir School, a Christian boys boarding school at 202 W. 58th St., about a block from Carnegie Hall and Columbus Circle.
The shooter disappeared as if he were “a ghost,’’ one witness said.
He coolly hopped into a waiting light-colored Lincoln sedan, with a getaway driver behind the wheel.
The car headed east but initially was caught in traffic and stopped at a red light at the intersection.
But both coldblooded riders didn’t panic and stayed inside the car — just feet from Woodard’s body — before turning down Seventh Avenue and disappearing.
“There was no rush,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said of Woodard’s killer. “He just walked up, shot him and walked away.”
A police source said the shooting was “definitely a hit, an assassination.”
Investigators are probing a possible connection to drug dealing.
Woodard was charged with cocaine possession in California last June and has prior arrests for robbery, petty theft and leaving the scene of an accident.
Police are also exploring to what extent Woodard — who once claimed he was roughed up by bodyguards working for R&B superstar Usher — had ties to the music industry, law-enforcement sources said.
Woodard, who was wearing a black suit, was dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital.
The shooter was described as black, wearing a dark coat with a brown hoodie and khaki pants.
David Mirambeau, 29, a UPS worker delivering packages, said the sound of the gunshot reverberated down the street.
“I just heard a gunshot. It was loud. There was blood all over his face,” he said of Woodard. “He was gasping for air. He was still alive.”
Mirambeau said several cellphones and an iPod lay near the man’s body.
The grisly exit wound on Woodard’s face led witnesses to report he had been shot in the front, not the back, of the head.
Witnesses ran to a firehouse at 215 W. 58th St. to say a man had been shot.
“I ran over to the Fire Department, banged on the door, and they came out immediately,” said Benny Harris, 44.
“Within minutes, they were cutting the guy’s clothes off,” he said.
“We didn’t see the perp,” Harris added. “We all ran over there, and nobody was around. He must’ve been a ghost.”
Police sources said investigators had found surveillance footage of the gangland-style murder but were unsure whether to release it because it doesn’t show the killer’s face — and it’s extremely graphic.
A single shell casing was recovered, police said.
Relatives poured into the Woodard family home in LA to pay condolences, but declined to comment.
“Brandon was a wonderful man — kind heart, smart, good person,” said family friend Chrissy Roussel, who added that Woodard was attending Whittier Law School in California and was visiting friends in New York.
Woodward’s father, J. Lincoln Woodard, 72, said, “It was a shock.”
The victim worked at United International Mortgage, an LA firm founded by his mother, Sandra McBeth-Reynolds.
Additional reporting by Chuck Bennett, Matthew McNulty and Jamie Schram in New York and Genevieve Wong in Los Angeles
kirstan.conley@nypost.com
